Pellets

[RD.]

I have had fish that reacted differently to the exact same formula, based solely on color. As I recall they preferred the green over the red. Same formula, just different dyes to color the food. Fish can and often do have preference over pellets brands/formulas, no question about it. Sometimes it's as simple as what they were raised on, and used to. Frustrating to the owner that is attempting to increase the quality of the fishes food, only to have a stubborn fish that refuses to eat. I've trained a lot of difficult species, including many wild fish, and have always had good success by pre-soaking the pellets in the juice of frozen blood worms, and feeding sparingly once in the AM when the fish is hungriest. It definitely takes some extra effort, and sometimes the patience of Job, but in the end I almost always win.

 

[FINWIN]

I have had fish that reacted differently to the exact same formula, based solely on color. As I recall they preferred the green over the red. Same formula, just different dyes to color the food. Fish can and often do have preference over pellets brands/formulas, no question about it. Sometimes it's as simple as what they were raised on, and used to. Frustrating to the owner that is attempting to increase the quality of the fishes food, only to have a stubborn fish that refuses to eat. I've trained a lot of difficult species, including many wild fish, and have always had good success by pre-soaking the pellets in the juice of frozen blood worms, and feeding sparingly once in the AM when the fish is hungriest. It definitely takes some extra effort, and sometimes the patience of Job, but in the end I almost always win.

That's exactly what I ran into with Hikari Bio Gold. My fish eat all other Hikari like crack (The Blood Parrot Red and Cichlid Gold they'll eat all day) with the Excel a close second. They aren't too crazy about the Carnivore. But the Bio-Gold by itself they're pretty neutral on. I started mixing variations of the pellets each meal (including the Aquaticfoods pellets) so they couldn't get too used to one flavor. It seems to be working. I'll mix the Bio Gold with different combos. I also have freeze dried garlic chunks I drop in for flavor. They go nuts for it, my O even ate the garlic before he realized it. His fins stood on end after gulping it down!